The WF OAIC Integrative Biology Core (IBC) plays an essential role in integrating biologic with neurologic, psychosocial and behavioral factors to understand aging-related disability processes. The IBC helps translate knowledge on biological aging from animal models, to discover and test biological contributors to human functional decline as future targets for new therapies to prevent or treat disability. The IBC provides key expertise and resources needed to test the contributions of both traditional and novel biological factors to functional decline and disability. In the upcoming cycle, we will further expand a broad battery of relevant biological assays and continue to refine these measures, as new signals and evidence emerge, to test novel pathways, including translation to humans of knowledge from preclinical work on the basic biology of aging. The premise behind the IBC's work is that (a) specific cellular, organ, and systemic processes combine in an integrated manner to influence aging-related loss of function, and (b) therapeutic modification of these factors will slow progression to disability. The Specific Aims of the IBC are to: 1) Advance understanding of biological factors underlying aging-related decline in physical function, and determine whether specific behavioral and pharmacological interventions modify these factors; 2) Offer a biospecimen resource as part of the Integrated Aging Studies Databank and Repository to generate and test novel hypotheses; 3) Train research fellows and OAIC-supported early-career faculty in methods and techniques used to study cellular, tissue-level, and systemic biological factors; 4) Design and conduct Developmental Projects aimed at establishingnew Core methods/technologies that expand services for OAIC investigators;5) Offer educational opportunities to foster translational research and communication of OAIC Core-supported research findings; and 6) Provide resources for studies by early-career faculty and for OAIC-supported pilots. Drs. Nicklas and Delbono will continue to lead the IBC, which uses the state-of-the-art cellular and molecular techniques of the collective laboratories of IBC investigators and other WFSM Core laboratories, to support novel research in line with the WF OAIC theme of ?Integrating pathways affecting physical function for new approaches to disability treatment and prevention?. In its first year of support the IBC will support 2 pilots (1 led by an REC scholar), 11 externally-supported projects designed to test this hypothesis, and 1 Research Development Project to develop a new resource to measure autophagic flux to address novel hypotheses. We will provide the OAIC with cutting-edge scientific expertise and methodologies required to accomplish our aims efficiently, and work closely with the other OAIC cores.